Flooring.



PATBNTBD JULY 7, 1903.] HBATON ORING;

"J. w. PLO

APPLIOAI'IOI FILE 10 MODEL.

INVENTOR v Jhn 71". He oI/Zon,

WITNESSES UNITED STATES,

iatented 7, 1, 905.

PATENT Curios,

JoHN W. HEATON, OF INDIANAPoLiS, INDIANA, AssieNoii OF ONE-HALF To AUGUSTIN BoIoE, 0F INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA.

FLOORING.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 732,741, dated 31117 7;-

ieoe.

Application filed October 23, 1901. Serial Ilo. 79,664. (No model.)

To all'whom) it may concern/:-

Beitknown that I, JOHN W. HEATON, a citizen of the United States, residing at Indianapolis, in'the county of Marion and State of In diana, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Flooring, of which the following is a specification. In the manufacture of tongue-and-grooved flooring the cutting away of the wood to form the tongue results in considerable waste, as is well known. In flooring of'the thickness most commonly employed (seven-eighths of an inch) and thinner it is highly desirable that the tongue shall be either integral with the piece of flooring or secured so firmly thereto as that the etfect shall be equivalent. Heretofore the making of the flooring and the tongues from separate pieces has not been considered practicable, for the reason above but wherein the tongue shall .be formed separately and afterward attached, thus saving the waste consequent upon making the tongue integrally with the remainder of the strip. 1

When a groove is formed in the edge of a strip'of lumber, such asflooring, new surfaces are exposed'to'the air, and consequently a new shrinkage takes'place at that point. The result is that the parts on each side of the groove are drawn slightly together at their outer or.free edges,"while1the edge of the strip as a whole is at the same time made slightly concave. In other words, the extreme corners (which bound the newlyformed groove) are drawn both inward'toward the bottom of the groove and also. toward each other. I have discovered that this change of form, while very slight, is su flicient to enable the parts outside the groove to grasp a tongue-strip firmly enough to hold it vin place in said groove if such strip is of the proper shape and size and is inserted immediately after the groove is formed and before the shrinking above described has had time to take place.

verse sectional view of onestrip of flooring I just after the grooves have been made therein and before the tongue has been inserted in one of said grooves; Fig. 3, a similar view after the tongue has been inserted and before the shrinking has taken place; Fig. 4, a similar view afterithe shrinking operationhas taken place, and Fig. 5 a sectional view ofa tongue-strip of the form used by me separately. f

In carrying out my invention I nary flooring-strips and prepare them in substantially the ordinary manner by means of a suitable machine, except that instead of making a tongue upon one side and a groove upon the other I make grooves upon both sides, as shown. This results in the partially-formed flooringstrip A, as. shown in Fig, 2. ously-prepared tongue-strip B into one of the grooves of each flooring-strip. This tongue is of a thickness at one edge sufiicient to tightly fit into the groove into which it is inserted. It tapers very slightly from thence I then immediately insert a previ take ordi-' to the other edge, so that the last-named edge is somewhat thinner than the first named. I

Thisis shown (in somewhat exaggerated form) in Fig. 3. The freshly-cut wood alongside the groove in the strip A then shrinks, producing the effect shown in Fig. 4, when the flooring iscomplete. of flooring quite equal to that which'is pro- The result is an article,

duced in the ordinary manner, while the .sav-p ingin the expensive lumber of which the floor- .ing is made will run from ten to twenty-five per cent., according, to the width '-i'x vhieh, as

will be readily seen, is a highly-important matter.

Having thus fully described my said invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

2 wean:

ro side the groove to shrink in onto and clamp the tongue strip, whereby a tongue andgrooved flooring-strip is produced, substantially as and for the purposes set forth.

In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and sea], at Indianapolis, Indiana, this 15 18th day of September, A. D. 1901.

q JOHN W. HEATON. Witnesses:

CHESTER BRADFORD, L. H. COLVIN. 

